Holding the heavy and difficult content of this course requires your body to be nourished, tuned and rhythmically balanced. The basic practices below are recommendations that can help you de-center (the ego), disarm (affective landmines), declutter (your gut, heart and headspace) and disinvest in harmful patterns. The practices may feel very different each time you do them so we suggest that you commit to repeating them more than once (ideally on a daily basis through this period). You may want to stick to only one of the practices and/or try them all, and repeat at least one of them consistently. 

Food:

During this week, we invite you to diet for the Amazon. Our food choices connect us to the intensifying demand to clear the Amazon and therefore are directly related to the bills that are being passed by the Brazilian government to cancel Indigenous rights to their lands. The invitation during this unit is to look through your fridge and pantries and identify all the items that contain beef or bovine meat, soy or corn (and their derivatives), as it is likely that these ingredients came from Brazil. For a week, sustain a diet that avoids these three ingredients completely (take the time to read the ingredients in the labels of processed foods, as most contain at least one of the three).  It is also important to remember that avoiding such foods for a short period of time does not exempt us from the complicity in harm. To better understand this invitation please Watch Will’s video. 

Sound:

For this week’s practice the invitation to tune into silence, in order to re-calibrate your relationship with listening as a whole. Set some time during this week for intentional silence for a period of time that is manageable to you (anywhere from 30 min to a whole day). This time should be spent without speaking, writing, texting, reading or listening to music. Be present to and observe the chaotic cacophony that inhabits the silent internal space, and sit with it without ignoring or trying to escape it. It may be helpful to imagine that there is a technology capable of transcribing all of your thoughts – including the random and unfinished ones, so that they are documented and you are released from the burden of selecting, describing, re-articulating and remembering them.

Movement:

This week’s practice involves shaking for at least 5 minutes, but ideally up to 15 as you listen to this Album. The invitation is to stand with your feet hip-width apart, soften your knees and drop your shoulders. Begin shaking by feeling the bounce through your knees and let the vibration spread to your arms and shoulders. Try to shake your entire body, shaking from the bone, and letting the rest (your muscles and skin) hang off from it, like a ‘light silk shirt on a hanger. This type of movement activates the parasympathetic nervous system and signals the brain to release as well as activates the lymphatic system of our body, which helps our body get rid of the toxins. Songs: Eriya Huni Kuin Album